Test your legal literacy

Being a trainer, I can’t help but ask questions. So every now and again I will post a quiz for fun; you can test your own knowledge about the Care Act and how local authorities are getting on with implementing the changes. Test your knowledge by clicking the links.

If you fill in your contact details below an email will be sent to you containing the results of the test.

I have been diagnosed as being on the Autistic Spectrum. I have asked for help in the past, but received nothing as I am “High functioning”. We have been in trouble with the law, and got no help as we were on legal aid. I am now reading up on a few things, and I am shocked and sad at how we were let down. This makes me cross, because, although I can deal with it, my husband cannot.

Hello – I’m sorry to hear that you’ve tried to get support, and been turned down. On one approach, being high functioning (forgive the repetition of the classification, please!) might be seen as meaning you cope well with what you have to contend with, and hence less needy than others. But one’s intellectual capacity is not relevant to the statutory test for an assessment or any part of the definition of eligibility, so yes, you should be angry. If I were you, I would look up the Care and Support (Eligibility) Regulations, 2014, and discuss with your husband which domains or tasks (they are called outcomes in the statutory guidance) you see yourselves as unable to achieve, bearing in mind that managing those things but with anxiety, distress or endangerment to self or others, or taking a lot longer than might be expected to achieve them, still means that you can count as unable. Then try to write down the significance to you both of the impact on your wellbeing, and have another go, asking, this time round, for written reasons, as per s13 of the Act, as to why you are not considered eligible. Good luck, too.

HI
I have been trying to move my son from a care home that fraudulently said they were Autism Specialists and has delivered poor care since April 2013. Two best interest meetings in Dec 2013 and March 2014 agreed to move him and were then ignored by the CCG who are funders- the BI decisions were under the auspices of the “subcontracted” Commissioning Support Unit.
A barrister we consulted said we needed to prove my son’s needs weren’t being met. An ” Autism Expert” was agreed and jointly funded by CCG and family and reported that my son should be moved as his needs weren’t being met in February 2016. The CCG had now taken the case out of the hands of the CSU. Then in July 2016 the CCG was taken into Special Measures.
In Oct 2016 the CCG said there must be an assessment of needs as it was 20 months overdue. This was done and the CCG are now disputing he qualifies for CHC funding with the LA disputing back the other way. All this time I have been raising and evidencing concerns and even abuse in the home. Unbeknown to me, at the time of my original complaint the CSU were negotiating with the provider concerned an extremely lucrative new contract for a purpose built home described in a press release as an “Autism Care Home” that had been lacking in the county. The new facility was to be a 21 bed home and press release said the venture was “With the backing of NHS ****shire”. My son was the first “guinea pig” client of NHS ****shiire with this provider. No mention of this project was ever made nor conflict of interest expressed. We have been subject to overt bullying and intimidation-and still my son is in a home of poor care,unsafe inflated marketing claims and devoid of good standards, ethics, honesty, training etc. Nothing in procedure has afforded any redress. It could serve a textbook case of the worst possible scenario of care law pertaining to a vulnerable adult at every possible level. Please, please help

Taking this bit by bit – it sounds like an episode from a surreal TV drama and you can possibly go to NHS England about it. They supposedly provide light touch supervision of meltdowns in CCGs – they are part of the chain of accountability to the Secretary of State. Special Measures should mean that the new management is under more scrutiny than before.

b) “the BI decisions were under the auspices of the “subcontracted” Commissioning Support Unit.” These decisions could have been recommendations only, to the CCG unless the CSU had power to effect, and not merely recommend, care planning decisions. So this is ambiguous at present, I appreciate that it has been superseded by the sacking of the CSU by the CCG.

c) An “Autism Expert” was agreed and jointly funded by CCG and family and reported that my son should be moved as his needs weren’t being met in February 2016.
That’s enough for NHS England to be bothered, and to have justified judicial review, but I expect you were told to complain. It’s not too late to do either, if you act quickly but the later details make it a case where ironically it could be said to be premature, given the fresh assessment.

d) “in Oct 2016 the CCG said there must be an assessment of needs as it was 20 months overdue. This was done and the CCG are now disputing he qualifies for CHC funding with the LA disputing back the other way.”

How very typical. Kind of makes their having paid for the independent expert’s input, a bit of a stalling tactic, doesn’t it?

Have you been asked whether you wish to appeal? You might not have cared who is legally liable, because whether the service was chargeable or not might have been of no significance to you. However, if you appeal, you could have been using the IRP system, to get the decision reviewed, proactively, I would suggest. If you don’t appeal, it would just be the two bodies slugging it out in private in their no doubt tortuous inter agency dispute resolution mechanism.

e) All this time I have been raising and evidencing concerns and even abuse in the home.

What’s been done and to whom and by whom? CQC? NHS England? The Equality and Human Rights body? The special measures management?
Insufficient detail here, I am afraid.

f) Unbeknown to me, at the time of my original complaint the CSU were negotiating with the provider concerned an extremely lucrative new contract for a purpose built home described in a press release as an “Autism Care Home” that had been lacking in the county. The new facility was to be a 21 bed home and press release said the venture was “With the backing of NHS ****shire”. My son was the first “guinea pig” client of NHS ****shiire with this provider.

I am sorry but I am not understanding this because of the way you have expressed it: he was supposed to be their first client in the FUTURE, for within the new home, if the deal came off, or do you mean that he WAS BEING guinea pigged during all your concerns about abuse and incompetence? Just not clear I am afraid.

You mention a complaint here for the first time? Do you mean a formal complaint, or an informal one, a flagging up, etc?
Do you mean to the NHS complaints system, or do you mean to the provider? Without the detail of whether this was upheld or not and if not why not, I am in the dark.

g) We have been subject to overt bullying and intimidation-and still my son is in a home of poor care,unsafe inflated marketing claims and devoid of good standards, ethics, honesty, training etc. Nothing in procedure has afforded any redress. It could serve a textbook case of the worst possible scenario of care law pertaining to a vulnerable adult at every possible level.

It could, perhaps, but not without more detail. It may be that this is your perception because the home has felt that you have made it difficult for them to get on with their job: I am just hypothesising here – but such disputes can and do happen and if the CCG is legally illiterate it will not have known how to get the parties round the table to thrash out an agreement for all staying calm.

I can comment on this in order to elicit the details but you have already been to a barrister but not said what the current advice is, nor what is currently going on.

I charge for advice through Care and Health Law, and you are welcome to seek it but not in this sort of a forum. This is for steers. When the charity that I am starting is launched, this sort of matter would be taken on for free but only with one outcome: a pre action protocol letter threatening legal action in judicial review, and I am guessing that you have been advised that for some reason this is not a current possibility, by professional advisers, so I think that there may be more complexity behind this than first appears.